‘Man with a van’ lands him­self with £800 cost

CLIENT’S RUB­BISH FOUND DUMPED

A MAN has been hit with more than £800 in fines and court costs af­ter he was found run­ning an il­le­gal waste re­moval op­er­a­tion.

Michael Las­celles was ad­ver­tis­ing his work on Face­book and claimed he was a “fully li­censed waste car­rier”.

His ad­vert read: “A man with a van, who re­moves all types of waste.”

He said he could take away rub­ble, soil, card­board and plas­tic, and could deal with house and garage clear­ances as well as gar­den tidy-up jobs.

The ad­vert fur­ther added: “We are a fast and re­li­able ser­vice and ful­lyli­censed waste car­ri­ers. No job is too big or small.”

How­ever, he did not have the per­mit to carry out the work and was found to have lied about where he was tak­ing waste, it was said at New­cas­tle Mag­is­trates’ Court.

His of­fences came to light af­ter he de­cided to col­lect some rub­bish from a woman’s home in March last year.

Joanne Bagshaw, pros­e­cut­ing for New­cas­tle City Coun­cil, said: “She had re­cently re­dec­o­rated her child’s bed­room and put rub­bish in the back of her gar­den.

“She was look­ing on Face­book to re­move this waste and saw an ad­vert from Mr Las­celles. He quoted her £40 and said he would be there at 11am on March 22. He did not ar­rive at 11am. He ar­rived at 4.30pm, in com­pany with an­other male, in a sil­ver van al­ready packed with waste.

“Mr Las­celles said it was go­ing to be taken to the tip and said he wanted £75 as there was more waste than he thought.”

He was paid in cash but no re­ceipt was pro­vided to the cus­tomer.

That waste was later found de­posited else­where and the coun­cil man­aged to trace it back to the woman, who ex­plained how the rub­bish had been taken away by Las­celles.

Ms Bagshaw said there was no sug­ges­tion Las­celles had fly-tipped. He told of­fi­cers he of­ten passed the waste on to a friend and it was taken to an ad­dress in Seaton Delaval, where it was then burned on a farmer’s field.

Las­celles, 22, of Ai­dan Court, Benton, pleaded guilty to three charges – fraud by false rep­re­sen­ta­tion, for ly­ing about the des­ti­na­tion of the cus­tomer’s waste and his cre­den­tials as a waste car­rier, an of­fence for han­dling waste with­out tak­ing rea­son­able mea­sures to pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment and a charge of not hav­ing the rel­e­vant per­mit. Ms Bagshaw told the court: “There is a le­gal obli­ga­tion to en­sure that waste is be­ing passed on to some­one who is au­tho­rised to dis­pose of it cor­rectly. He has ad­mit­ted that waste was taken to Seaton Delaval and was burnt. Burn­ing waste in a non-reg­u­lated man­ner causes harm to the en­vi­ron­ment – no­body knows what is be­ing burnt – and can cause pol­lu­tion.”

Mark Har­ri­son, rep­re­sent­ing Las­celles, said: “In the re­ally short life of ‘man with van,’ he did not go out to get ap­pro­pri­ate li­cences. He ought to have got the rel­e­vant per­mis­sions first. He is no longer in­volved in any form of waste dis­posal.”

Mag­is­trates or­dered Las­celles to pay more than £800, in­clud­ing £320 in fines and more than £500 in costs.